Sophie Waterhouse
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This professional is available for new clients.
This professional is available for new clients.
About me
I am a humanistic psychotherapist accredited with BACP. I work with individuals, couples and groups and have more than 15 years experience in private practice. I have an additional training in expressive arts therapy and a special interest in the role of creativity in helping us navigate the challenges of life. Creativity is not limited to artistic endeavours. It takes creativity to sustain relationships, to resolve conflict, to make changes in our lives.
I became a psychotherapist because of my own positive experience with therapy. Developing greater self-awareness and better coping strategies through therapy has allowed me to live a much more fulfilled life. When we're not struggling so much with ourselves and others, there is a lot more room for joy.
What happens in sessions?
Therapy is a conversation in which you have the opportunity to be deeply listened to in a way that is different to talking with friends and family. Sometimes we feel we have to edit ourselves with loved ones because we don't want them to worry about us or we worry they won't understand or might disapprove. Loved ones also sometimes jump in with suggestions for how to 'fix' something when really we need the space and focused support to talk it through and find our own solutions.
The main theoretical frame of reference I draw on is gestalt, which means the focus of sessions is on the here and now and what is working or not working for you right now. What is happening in the present may well be influenced by the past, and where that is the case we will look at how exactly the past is affecting you and whether there is unfinished business to resolve or whether there are self-defeating patterns to end.
I also pay attention to how emotions are embodied. Your mind does not exist in isolation from your body, they are interconnected. How you think and feel affects how you are physically and vice versa. Gestalt and formative psychology and my training in expressive arts all inform my work with the body-mind connection. In the past fifteen years neuroscience has begun to map what it is in these approaches that has a positive impact, helping where needed to rewire the brain and build new neural pathways that counteract the negative loops we may have got stuck in.
Couples work:
One of the central questions we face as humans is how to be in relationship with others while also being true to ourselves. It is this dilemma between the need for intimacy and the need for autonomy that couples therapy fundamentally addresses.
Difficulties can arise through poor communication and through differences in expectations of what a relationship means and involves. Challenges can also arise simply through the fact of difference - we are not all the same and differences in how we operate and move through the world (literally sometimes the different speeds at which we do things) can create conflict that needs to be addressed and managed.
Couples therapy is an opportunity to take a closer look at what you each bring to the relationship, what you create together and what you would like for the relationship. People often think you should only resort to couples therapy if you have hit a rocky patch, but reflecting on your relationship is something that can be worthwhile at any time and can serve to strengthen and deepen a relationship.
Special interests
I have a specialist training in the therapeutic use of the arts and if you are interested in including some arts work in sessions this is something we can discuss. I am passionate about creativity and how creative work and play support mental health and personal development.
My Masters training at the California Institute of Integral Studies also included exploration of transpersonal psychology - the area where psychology and spirituality intersect. This area has been and remains an important part of my own journey and I have studied with a number of teachers in the field of nondual consciousness (another area in which neuroscience is making interesting connections).
Ecopsychology explores the role of contact with nature in mental health. I have studied shamanic journeying since 2001 and teach a shamanic journeying course: Homecoming. Journeying can deepen our sense of connection with the natural world and combines elements of both transpersonal and ecopsychology.
My background:
I was born and grew up in London. I studied philosophy and history for my bachelors, focusing on French and African history. I then trained in film production before moving to live in Greece for several years and then in America. I returned to the UK in 2006 and now live in Hastings. Before becoming a psychotherapist, I worked in film. Creativity has long been an important part of my life. My current creative involvements mainly revolve around psychotherapy, writing fiction and poetry, experimenting with visual arts and cooking.
Training, qualifications & experience
I am British but trained in the United States. I have a Masters degree in Counselling Psychology with a concentration in Expressive Arts Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. CIIS is an accredited institute and its psychology training programmes fulfil the rigorous academic requirements of the California Board of Behavioral Sciences and state licensing laws for psychotherapy. I completed my clinical practicum at Berkeley Creative Living Center, a drop-in day care centre for chronically mentally ill clients in Berkeley, California.
Since 2007 I have continued my training, supervision and personal work with Spectrum Therapy, a humanistic psychotherapy centre in north London where I was a practitioner from 2013 to 2020. I also engage in CPD connected to expressive arts, neuroscience and transpersonal psychology with CIIS and other organizations and resources.
I am an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) and on the BACP Register. I am bound by the codes of ethics of BACP and Spectrum. I am also a professional member of the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association (IEATA).
Member organisations
school Registered / Accredited
Being registered/accredited with a professional body means an individual must have achieved a substantial level of training and experience approved by their member organisation.
BACP is one of the UK’s leading professional bodies for counselling and psychotherapy with around 60,000 members. The Association has several different categories of membership, including Student Member, Individual Member, Registered Member MBACP, Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Accred) and Senior Registered Accredited Member MBACP (Snr Acccred).
Registered and accredited members are listed on the BACP Register, which shows that they have demonstrated BACP’s recommended standards for training, proficiency and ethical practice. The BACP Register was the first register of psychological therapists to be accredited by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
Accredited and senior accredited membership are voluntary categories for members who choose to undertake a rigorous application and assessment process to demonstrate additional standards around practice, training and supervision.
Individual members will have completed an appropriate counselling or psychotherapy course and started to practise, but they won’t appear on the BACP Register until they've demonstrated that they meet the standards for registration. Student members are still in the process of completing their training.
All members are bound by the BACP Ethical Framework and a Professional Conduct Procedure.
Accredited register membership
The Accredited Register Scheme was set up in 2013 by the Department of Health (DoH) as a way to recognise organisations that hold voluntary registers which meet certain standards. These standards are set by the Professional Standards Authority (PSA).
This therapist has indicated that they belong to an Accredited Register.
Areas of counselling I deal with
Other areas of counselling I deal with
Creativity
Expressive Arts Therapy
Shamanic journeying
Therapies offered
Fees
£55.00 - £70.00
Concessions offered for
Additional information
My standard fee is £70 per session for individual therapy, £80 for couples therapy. I do, however, take into account differences in local economies and charge a lower rate for Hastings-based clients of £55 for individual sessions and £70 for couples.
When I work
Evening and daytime appointments available.
Further information
If you would like to book a first session, please call me on 07877 453477 or send me a message as above.